A Whole New Wedding World, Tips and Trends
Weddings are back — and June kicks off wedding month in a floral world that looks nothing like it did before COVID. For this episode, Vonda and Lori share the best excerpts from a live webinar featuring two experts: Julie Poeltler AIFD, PFCI, owner of Fountain of Flowers in Lone Tree, Iowa and a Flower Clique consultant, and Mark Griffith, a 25-year industry veteran on both the retail and wholesale sides, now with Bill Doran Company. Flower Clique Creative Director Ellie LaFever breaks in throughout with her own wedding-trend perspective. The through-line: retail and wholesale have to work together — and communicate constantly — to pull off a great wedding right now.
The consultation is a two-way interview
Julie frames the first meeting as mutual: you're interviewing the bride as much as she's interviewing you, checking whether your personalities connect enough to make the process fun instead of stressful. Ask personal questions — how did he propose? Can I see your dress? Brides want to tell those stories, and the answers build trust. Then set a decision deadline: your estimate is only good for 24 hours or two weeks, whatever your policy is, but there must be a date. As Ellie adds, that deadline establishes mutual respect from the start — and tells you a lot about how the whole working relationship will go. Julie's other consultation tip: always sell a backdrop. Even a simple structure in front of a tree adds the depth and enchantment those forever-photos deserve.
Sell the look, not the stem list
A recurring theme: designers get more hung up on exact flowers than brides do. Mark's insight is that clients buy the look — the colors, the feel, the texture — not each individual variety, and it's the florist's professional job to deliver that look flexibly. Ellie warns against defaulting to "yes" in the first conversation; instead, set the tone early that flowers are living, seasonal organisms and not everything is available all the time. Educate and inspire — that's your role. It pays off with substitutions like the cremone for the scarce, pricey dahlia: petal to petal they're nearly identical, dramatically cheaper, and as Mark says, on her wedding day a bride with a fresh, professionally designed bouquet is not going to mourn one cafe au lait dahlia. Some clients will even tell you from day one: I trust you to sub whatever you need to get me this look.
The peony problem — and the hard conversation
Peonies are the highest Mark has seen in 25 years, even in season, thanks to logistics costs on Dutch product (the supply rotates through Holland, local May crops, Alaska, then Chile). If you quoted a wedding a year ago at $5 a stem and they're now $9, don't eat $400 on a hundred stems silently — have the tough conversation now. Offer a solution, not a complaint: maybe cover the difference on the personal flowers only, or propose a substitution. Whatever you decide, decide it early — showing up on the wedding day with a surprise substitute makes everyone mad.
Order by ship date, and confirm the count
Mark's most practical rule: think in terms of ship date, not wedding date. Wholesalers want orders two to four weeks ahead of the day you want the flowers to arrive, because farm supply is first come, first served — one celebrity wedding can clear the market of quicksand roses. Ellie adds a COVID-era wrinkle from a wedding she's designing: changing distancing protocols cut the reception from 28 tables to 11, halving the centerpiece count. Before your order deadline, reconfirm the final floor plan with whoever's in charge.
Trends: dried, painted, and made-ahead
Eucalyptus still rules Pinterest, with olive branch, Italian ruscus, and painted plumosa (Fern Trust's Color Fresh line comes pre-tinted in about 20 colors) close behind. Dried product — bunny tails, bleached ruscus, fan palms, grasses — is so hot wholesalers can't source enough; Mark's advice is buy it when you see it, even for a wedding a year out. Oversized, 20-variety bouquets and bridesmaids carrying flower rings are trending, and dried elements mean much of the work can be done ahead, with fresh pops glued in at wedding time. Julie shares her Design Master painting techniques — gloved-hand spritzes, layering multiple cans to hit a color, transforming white hydrangea into whole palettes — and offers to help any listener who reaches out. On wedding packages: there's a real market, especially for lower-budget brides (base package plus add-ons), but don't sell only packages or the fantasy-wedding client may never walk in your door.
Key takeaways
- Manage expectations and be transparent — with the bride and the wholesaler alike.
- Communicate constantly; guidelines, guest counts, and availability are all changing, so keep the dialogue open right up to the order deadline.
- Be ready for substitutions — really, be ready for anything — and have hard pricing conversations early, framed around solutions.
- Order by ship date, not wedding date, and buy dried product the moment you see it.